CALGARY, Alberta, March 12 (UPI) -- Canadian regulators approved an application from TransCanada Corp. to construct and operate a Canadian portion of the Keystone oil pipeline.
Hal Kvisle, the president and chief executive officer at TransCanada, said the Keystone pipeline will be the first pipeline that connects Canadian crude oil to the largest refining market in North America.
"We are pleased the (Canadian) National Energy Board has approved our Keystone expansion," he said. "This is another significant milestone in advancing the project."
The NEB said "the proposed pipeline to be in the public interest and accepted that the project would connect a large, long-term and strategic market for Western Canadian crude oil with the U.S. Gulf Coast in a manner that would bring economic and other benefits to Canadians."
Planned expansions will increase the capacity of the pipeline from 590,000 barrels per day to roughly 1.1 million barrels per day.
The expansion would stretch nearly 2,000 miles from Alberta, Canada, to existing links through the northern U.S. states. It would link to a section through Kansas that would ultimately reach terminals in Port Arthur, Texas.
